This year’s media summit promised a discussion on the evolution and future of television technology. The panel itself, made up of alumni with careers at large media companies, concluded that social media was taking over television’s territory.

Jake Piacenti, a technical director for CBS Sports, spoke directly to the audience of students about how online content is dominating the media industry.

“While it sounds good to you guys that we’re all working at these big places, they’re not going to be the big places in a couple of years.” Piacenti said, summarizing the summit.

Several students after the event reported feeling disappointed by the summit. The focus on how social media is superseding television production landed to them as obvious and stale.

Cameron Jones, an ABC News reporter who moderated the panel, posed the first question to the panel over what piece of technology they considered the most essential. Each panelist’s answer was their cell phone; Jones’ was his Roomba.

The panel lightly touched on contemporary issues, such as the rise of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and mostly delved into the tedious history of telecommunications technology.

In one odd moment, Piacenti described the advent of eye-scanning technology in advertising as an innovation, casually glossing over the debate on its ethics and privacy concerns.

In a surprising burst of controversy during the panel’s concluding question-and-answer segment, Kaeillyn Jimenez, a student activist associated with Students for Justice in Palestine, chided the panel for discussing tech companies like Facebook, who she considered complicit in Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. 

Jimenez also accused “bourgeois media and news companies” of being fake news covering up the war in Gaza. The student was escorted out of the auditorium after cussing out the panel.

Jesse Kushner, assistant student director of the event, expressed uncertainty with the panel, focusing on how the event’s theme of television’s future was a limiting factor to the discussion.

“I got a good insight into the workings of television,” Kushner said, “but it’s hard to talk about what the future of it can be because evolution only comes with time and being in the present, we can’t see the future.” 

The highlight of the event for Kushner was the Career Connectors following the panel, which not only featured the panelists but several distinguished alumni as well.

Wells Liscomb, a senior cinema and screen studies major, thought the summit was well-put together, but not very helpful to students looking for advice on their futures.

“They just talked niceties and business talk,” Liscomb said. “Which is fun, but I don’t know if it quite did the job.”

His biggest takeaway?

“Television production companies are f***ing terrified of social media and they don’t want to admit it,” Liscomb said.

Wolf dissuaded students from fearing mass layoffs and a difficult job market, instead calling it temporary “cost control.”

“An optimistic message about this so-called ‘turmoil’ that exists is business cycles,” Wolf said. “It’s only a matter of time where you have to re-invest in these great media businesses because they must do that investment.”

Jones joined the conversation and told of his experience navigating the industry while technology advances. Jones argued that if it were not for the changing media landscape, he would not have been able to ascend to where he is today.

“There’s a lot of opportunity through this disruption that’s happening with technology,” Jones said. “And when you think of things like AI, when you think about things that are causing a lot of shifts, we’re not dancing on the tombstone of anything yet.”

As for advice to students, the general message was encouragement to endure a tumultuous industry by networking with peers and professionals.

“[Media is] one of the few industries where you don’t see people working by themselves,” Amada Caba, panelist and associate producer at A&E, said.

Photo by Elena Ehrhart